Wisdom

For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows.

All blessings are mixed blessings.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

The wise man reads both books and life itself.

If you would know what nobody knows, read what everybody reads, just one year afterward.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

I like to have a man’s knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

We give advice by the bucket but take it by the grain.

People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it.

We are never so generous as when giving advice.

You don’t need to take a person’s advice to make him feel good—just ask for it.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn’t it?

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.